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Get your FREE copy of The Parenting Revolution here:

This book shares the six simple parenting principles that will transform your family and your life.

Why am I giving this book away totally free? Because I want everyone to read it. I believe so passionately in the message of this book and I believe that if everyone knew the importance of these six principles, children would be happier, parenting would be more harmonious and many of the discipline issues families face today would simply fade away.

Parenting in line with these principles helps children to reach their full potential in life, and grow into vibrant, healthy and most importantly happy adults. I believe that every family deserves to read this.

This is part two in the Love Parenting series on Anger Management for Children. In part one we looked at working on ourselves. Going inwards and creating an atmosphere of calm. Finding more patience and meeting our own needs. You can watch/read part one here if you missed it.

In this section, we are going to look at the many reasons why our children might feel angry. When our children experience strong feelings of anger, it can be very scary for us as parents to witness. We don’t like to see our children so out of control and it can be terrifying for us to watch them feeling so furious when we can’t understand where that anger is coming from, what the cause is and what we can do to help them.

This is part one of a three part series on anger management for children. There are numerous reasons why a child may be experiencing feelings of intense anger, and the solutions are just as varied so it’s not something I want to rush through in one article.

In this first segment, I want to talk about looking inwardly at our own emotions and to do this, I’m going to start with a little story. Tell me if this strikes a chord within you.

I get a lot of emails asking me to give advice on the best, most respectful and most gentle punishments to use on children in order to help them learn boundaries and understand the consequences of their actions. In this video I share my answer and it may surprise you…

About a year ago, my four year old son decided that he was ready to start brushing his own teeth. I was hesitant. Dental hygiene is obviously very important, and I had read some great Steiner Waldorf based articles which stated that tooth brushing is a skill very similar to writing. When a child can write (typically a skill acquired around seven years old in Waldorf education) they can also manage to brush their teeth competently.

However, despite my reservations I had no desire to tell my son what he could and could not do with his own body. And so, we started a gradual process of handing over the task of tooth brushing with my role becoming less and less until after around a month, he was doing it all by himself – and very well too.

He was excited with his new found skill and taking on the responsibility of his own personal care. Yet, as the months passed by, this excitement waned. I began to notice that he was wandering around chewing his toothbrush, but not actually brushing his teeth. I felt frustrated. I knew he could do it well, but he just wasn’t interested.

I went back to reminding him how to brush every tooth. I tried brushing my teeth alongside him. But it didn’t work.

He lost interest to the extent that he didn’t want to clean his teeth at all, and mornings and evenings became a time of stress and nagging. He would whine, “Can you help me? Can you do them for me tonight?” and I would reply, “No, you are perfectly capable, please go and brush your teeth. I know you can do it darling.”

He wouldn’t, and I would get more and more frustrated at having to ask again and again.